THE WIG is a dull and lifeless South Korean horror film about a cancer patient who finds herself cursed when wearing a haunted wig. As ridiculous as that premise sounds, this film is played totally straight, with nary a laugh or attempt at humour in sight; as a result it's a macabre and unfortunately po-faced attempt at the supernatural that falls flat from the beginning.The Japanese took the same premise and came up with EXTE, a kooky and offbeat addition to the genre, but THE WIG is nothing like that film. Instead, it's content to go through the motions without innovation, and it adds nothing we haven't seen before in the 'long haired ghost' type genre. There's lots of slow-burning tension, a handful of deaths at the hands of some supernatural entity or other, and a lot of thumb-twirling as you wait for something to happen. Other than at the over-the-top ending, nothing does.The decision to make one of the central characters a mute was a poor one, because it makes the film even slower and a lot of the dialogue feel irrelevant. The acting is nothing to write home about and the direction is passable at best, but the movie's worst crime is the script, which fails to contribute even one memorable moment in an overlong running time.

• The artist sister is engaged to the art teacher. • She wins an award and tells her sister about the engagement. • Then she has an accident in the car which injures her throat and she can no longer speak. • Meantime the art teacher meets a young man with long hair and falls in love with him. • The young man is set upon by other men, possibly because he's homosexual, and they cut his hair short. • He commits suicide (not sure why) by jumping off a building. • His cut off hair is made into a wig. • The art teacher breaks up with the artist sister either because she's damaged goods without a voice or because he realizes he's homosexual. • Meantime, the sister of the mute artist is hospitalized with leukemia and loses her hair to chemotherapy. • Nothing further can be done for her, so the hospital decides to send her home to die, but her sister tells her she's cured. • Now the film begins. • The mute sister buys the wig for the leukemia sister made from the hair of the suicide. • The spirit of the dead man takes over whoever wears the wig and so the leukemia sister tries to seduce the art teacher. • The leukemia sister doesn't take her medicine because she knows she will look healthier without the pills and either she believes she's cured and doesn't need the pills or she sees through the lies and realizes she's going to die and so why bother taking the pills. • By the end, the mute sister has gone insane from (a) the accident; (b) losing her voice; (c) being rejected by her fiancé and (d) seeing her sister possessed by the dead male lover of her former fiancé; and she kills the leukemia sister.

At first I felt annoyed because finally they did a movie out of long black hairs, which was prevalent in a lot of Asian horror movies after "the ring" came out. Titles include The Dollmaster, The Phone, Ju-on or The Grudge, Tale of Two Sisters and so and so forth.The story is about a young woman who has gone past chemotherapy and is currently trying to live the life she never had. Her elder sisters life was also affected not only because her sisters terminal illness but because she is the only left to take care of her younger sister and she cant go on with life and get married and start a family.Chi-Hyon, the elder sister, decided to buy a wig for her younger sister, Suh-Hyon, who almost automatically improved overnight after wearing the wig. Then the trouble started.The film was also a bit longer than I expected, all of which were enough to let the audiences feel empathy for Suh-Hyon (the cancer survivor) as well as get mesmerized by her long silky black hair, which of course has the lead role in the film. Chi-Hyon, her elder sister, was also portrayed as ever caring and slightly on a martyr level, leaving the audiences to feel annoyed and at the same time pity Suh-Hyon.This movie is internationally called "The Wig".

I think "The Wig" simply isn't a good movie. There's are many elements that make it what it is...First thing is the film takes itself way too seriously, while the basic concept the movie is based on is utterly ridiculous. A haunted wig? The idea is just laughable, and the movie isn't original either. Of course, like many other South Korean teen horrors, there's the signature long-haired ghost so obviously ripped from 'Ring' and 'Ju-on'. And overall, the movie isn't very scary (even though we're lead to believe it IS by the trailer): there's a lot of unnecessary gore, and some jump scares that once it's revealed what made you jump, you get mad at the movie for startling you for nothing.The only worthwhile value I saw in this was the back story going on, and it's a very real and sad one: a woman's sister has terminal cancer, and she takes her home to live with her for the time she has left. The sister goes out everyday to take pictures of her having fun, so she can leave behind good memories... And the movie goes towards it's inevitable ending. The problem with this back story is it casts a depressing shadow over the entire film, and makes it painful to watch. And the ending is one of the saddest endings since that of "A Tale of Two Sisters".The only redeeming elements are the acting and the music. The acting is good (but at the same time depressing), and the music is beautifully haunting (but once again sad).If you want scares, you'd be better off with the infinitely better "The Red Shoes (Bunhongsin)". Unless you love being depressed and nothing else, avoid "Gabal" at all costs.My rating: 4/10